What does it actually cost to hire an intern in India?+
For most Indian teams the stipend is between 40% and 60% of the true cost. The rest is time — sourcing, screening calls, interview panels, mentor hours through the internship, onboarding and admin — plus equipment and access. A three-month intern on a ₹20,000 stipend rarely costs ₹60,000; once a mentor spends four hours a week on them, the loaded figure is usually well past ₹1,00,000. That is not an argument against interns. It is an argument for scoping the work properly, because an intern you never mentor costs almost as much and delivers nothing.
Why does mentor time cost so much in this model?+
Because it is the largest single line and the one teams forget. Four hours a week from an engineer whose loaded cost is ₹1,500 an hour is ₹6,000 a week — ₹78,000 over a three-month internship, more than triple a ₹20,000 stipend. The fix is not to cut mentoring; interns with no mentor produce nothing you can use. The fix is to scope one real project per intern so those hours convert into output.
What is a "loaded hourly cost" and what number should I use?+
Loaded cost is salary plus everything else the company pays for that person — benefits, employer contributions, equipment, workspace, software. A reasonable approximation is annual CTC divided by roughly 1,800 working hours, multiplied by about 1.25. For a ₹15 LPA engineer that lands near ₹1,000 an hour. If you have a real internal number from finance, use that instead.
How does this compare with a recruitment consultancy?+
Consultancies typically charge 8.33% to 16.67% of first-year CTC — one to two months of salary — and for early-career roles many will not engage at all because the fee is too small to be worth their time. The calculator shows the equivalent fee for comparison. What it does not show is the difference that matters most: a consultancy fee buys you a candidate, whereas the internal cost in this model buys you a candidate you have already watched work for three months.
What is "cost per converted hire" and why is it the number to watch?+
It is the total programme cost divided by the number of interns who actually convert to full-time. If you hire ten interns at ₹1,00,000 each and two convert, each permanent hire cost you ₹5,00,000 — which may still beat a lateral hire, or may not. Watching this number rather than cost per intern is what stops an internship programme from quietly becoming a cheap-labour scheme with no hiring outcome.
How do we reduce the cost without damaging the programme?+
The three levers that work: cut screening time with a structured process instead of unstructured calls; batch the intake so one onboarding session serves five interns rather than five separate sessions; and scope projects tightly enough that mentor hours produce reviewable output. The lever that does not work is cutting the stipend — that raises time-to-fill and drop-out, and both cost more than the saving.
Should equipment be counted if the intern is remote?+
Yes, unless they genuinely use their own machine and you have decided that is acceptable. Many teams ship a laptop to remote interns and count it as zero because it is reused afterwards. Amortise it instead — a ₹60,000 laptop over three internship cycles is ₹20,000 a cycle, and that is the honest number for this calculation.
